Unreal Tournament alternatives that are still played today

Akuji

Akuji

Member
Hey, i played Unreal Tournament every now and then when it was playable as a pre alpha until Epic closed it.
Is there an UT version that still has a good playerbase? Is quake champion the only alternative?

Would love to have some oldsql fun.
 
Quake, Quake 2, and Half-Life all got modern remasters recently, so there might be some crazy oldschool action going on there (including mods)... besides that, CoD isn't bad these days in terms of fast paced deathmatch (if you pick the right maps... Rust, Shipment, etc.). Counterstrike 2... exists, but it's not the UT experience.

There might be some indies out there but I'm not aware of them.
 
Quake 3, the essence of FPS:



Edit: It is still played today, you gotta look into the fan websites and forums. Most people play Quake Live, which is a "variant" of Quake 3, imho. You have to play both and decide which you like more.
 
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What about the multiplayer part of DOOM (2016) ?
Didn't play it myself, but it looks pretty much like a good old arena shooter.
Also maybe Halo?
 
There are still some people, including me, playing Unreal Tournament 99 with community patch 469.

I believe there are also some people playing UT 2004.

There are projects like UT4 Unofficial Update and Open Tournament that are focused around UT4 community modding/development. Still need to look into those.

Xonotic is a free alternative. Fun from what I've played. https://xonotic.org/

Diabotical was pretty fun but I believe only a handful of players are still playing it.

Quake Champions could be an option, still a few hundred people playing.

The communities for these games seems pretty small right now, but I believe it's only because the games are so old. I wish we'd see some kind of UT revival. UT3 was supposed to be re-released as UT3X, but that never happened. There was definitely hype for it. I think a new game, done properly, has big potential.
 
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I'm a little surprised so little came of modifying Epic's free Lyra sample project. That's more Fortnite than UT in terms of locomotion and such (Lyra is open to be modded and adding a first-person camera perspective is plenty doable, but there's more to it of course in order to make it really play like UT,) but it's otherwise a strong starter project.

Fortnite Create could seemingly do the same thing, and have an easier release path, but I'm not sure what progress has been made in that mode. (Seems like it had a ton of promise, it's basically entry-level UE5, but I've not heard of any great projects made in it.)

Feels like basically the problem, besides Epic potentially being party-poopers if anybody actually used their materials not otherwise included in the store, is just an acceptable saturation of players. Xonotic and UT4UU and Lyra projects and other stuff are great to see out there, but you've got to have players in there to enjoy them.
 
I'm still salty that they ditched UT4. It was shaping up nicely. You can understand why though - Fortnite took off, and realistically, what would the playerbase have been for UT4 in such a crowded MP market space? Absolutely no money in it for them whatsoever.

UT peaked with 2003/20004. I played that game religiously for 15 years. Scary to think the amount of hours I sunk into it.

UT, take a bow. Youngsters these days don't know what they missed out on.
 
BigLee74 said:
I'm still salty that they ditched UT4. It was shaping up nicely. You can understand why though - Fortnite took off, and realistically, what would the playerbase have been for UT4 in such a crowded MP market space? Absolutely no money in it for them whatsoever.

UT peaked with 2003/20004. I played that game religiously for 15 years. Scary to think the amount of hours I sunk into it.

UT, take a bow. Youngsters these days don't know what they missed out on.
Click to expand...
Fortnite is a game for kids though. Why not siphon fortnite players into unreal tournament? Lost opportunity imo...
 
BigLee74 said:
I'm still salty that they ditched UT4. It was shaping up nicely. You can understand why though - Fortnite took off, and realistically, what would the playerbase have been for UT4 in such a crowded MP market space? Absolutely no money in it for them whatsoever.

UT peaked with 2003/20004. I played that game religiously for 15 years. Scary to think the amount of hours I sunk into it.

UT, take a bow. Youngsters these days don't know what they missed out on.
Click to expand...
What does Epic have for players to pivot over to though? It's a mistake to think players will stick around with fortnite forever. Better to funnel players over to one of your own products, no?
 
As much as I loved UT, Tribes, Quake, various Half Life mods and that whole era of shooters... Overwatch is an amazing inheritor of that genre and still is now just a better game than any of those original ones. Don't @me.
 
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In terms of aesthetics, the Gears of War series has some (or a lot) of the DNA from Unreal Tournament. Character design, weaponry and graphical aesthetic. Although its third person, so a different experience. But still, can use some of the same skills when shooting. Coalition has tweaked the roadie run to be more flexible, too, so characters feel a lot more mobile in Gears 5. Not quite first person, but the closest I can get to the Unreal games now.
 
I'm still salty that they took Unreal Tournament off Steam. Never got around to buying it.
 
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